All posts tagged ‘kids activity’

A Jedi Knight and his assigned clone trooper companions fight against enemy battle droids to take control of the bridge of the Separatist warship. Photo: Ryan Carlson

How do you break the ice with kids and create their first introduction into roleplaying games?

As a GeekDad that has been roleplaying since I was about 12 years old, I have been anticipating an introduction to roleplaying for my three daughters. Sharing my love for a game that rewards the use of imagination, math skills, and creativity sounds like a good thing, right? The struggle geek parents generally have are in relation to the timing of when to introduce a roleplaying game and just as importantly, how to introduce it.

My opportunity to break new ground in the roleplaying world with the next generation of young gamers was recently presented to me. Recently, my wife and I gave our friends a much-needed date night by watching their kids. Our friends have four kids (ages 2 through 9) and my wife and I have three kids (ages 6 months through 6 years). My primary job for the evening was to manage the nine year old boy since the rest of the kids would happily play with one another or were young enough to stay out of trouble. The nine year old boy was older than all of the rest of the kids and an avid board-gamer, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce him to a roleplaying game. Continue Reading “Running an Introductory Roleplaying Game for Kids” »

Ok, that’s a silly question. Do your kids like to draw comics? Maybe they’re already experts at it, or maybe they need a little push in the right direction. Either way, I’ve got just the perfect book for you: the Adventures in Cartooning Activity Book.

This is actually a companion to Adventures in Cartooning, sort of a kids’ version of Understanding Comics. Like Scott McCloud’s seminal work, Adventures in Cartooning tells how comics work by way of a comic, this time with a knight, a horse, a dragon and a magic elf. It’s all done in a doodled style which is really cute and easy to read. The Activity Book notches up the interactivity. Instead of just reading about the knight’s adventures, your budding artist gets pages to fill in—drawing food for Edward the horse, filling in sound effects, learning how to use dust clouds and motion lines to show somebody running fast.

The story is pretty funny, too, with a cookie monster, a giant, robots and the knight’s solution for making the rain stop; the magic elf comes along to give pointers about how comics work. At the end there’s a review of cartooning tools, and then 14 pages of blank panels for geeklings to draw their own comics.

Do your geeklets have an idea for the next great invention? Well, LEGO is giving out $25,000 in savings bonds to salute kids’ smartest ideas.

In honor of National Inventors’ Month, LEGO Systems Inc. today launches its LEGO® CLICK! Awards, an essay contest for children ages 6 to 13. Now in its third year (formerly called the LEGO Creativity Awards), the LEGO CLICK! Awards are designed to inspire and celebrate children’s creativity, innovative thinking and inventive spirit. Five winning essays submitted by children between the ages of 6 and 13 will be each be awarded a $5,000 savings bond. To submit for the award, children must answer: “If you could invent anything, what would it be? Describe how to use it. How did you get the idea? What excites you about it?” before November 2, 2009. Entries will be judged by a panel of experts from the Smithsonian Institution and LEGO Systems.

It might not be where Warren Ellis started, but for those geek dads with comic book writer aspirations for their children MakeBeliefsComix.com is a great space for primary aged children to begin to learn the value of story-telling in 3 panels.

This online comic creation tool provides quite a range of options for children to begin.

The limitation is with what characters you have and the style, but as a way of getting children to think about 3-panel narratives and comic dialogue it is great.

And, design wise there is a lot of flexibility from changing speech bubble sizes, flipping characters around and moving them anywhere within the space. It also includes panel prompts and background colors.

A
one click options to either email or print your comic gives immediate results, so crucial for younger children who often want to produce things quickly.

The site also extends children ready for it with story ideas and writing tips.